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Wednesday, November 6, 2013

Let's Go to the "Hospital For Souls"

So I'm back with more Bring Me The Horizon! This is also off of the newest album, Sempiternal. It's the last track on the regular CD and it's one of my favorites- this is "Hospital For Souls".

Here are the lyrics so you can follow along. This first part is spoken which I think adds a lot of depth to the song considering how really deep the words are. It's a rather profound little paragraph and it really sets the stage for the rest of the song. ﻿It's all about depression really and how hard it is to get out of and how it really feels when you're super depressed. Every day it's like there is no purpose to anything and when you're so depressed you are contemplating suicide, the days really are "a death wish". All you do is look for a way out of everything and you don't want to do anything. You lose interest in everything that once mattered. You feel completely powerless to do anything to help yourself. Sometimes you think about going to some group therapy or even some AA meeting or something if you've decided to self-medicate thinking it will help but then you just sit there because you don't want to admit what's wrong. It's a war every day and even the tiniest raised voice or angry look can make you burst into tears because you're that fragile. All you can think about is how messed up and worthless you are. And I love the analogy of life he gives here to an "empty staircase" because truly our lives are our own so we all really go through life alone. It especially feels like that when you have depression. You feel alone and it's like everyone around you disappears.

I think this picture does a really good job of explaining how depression really feels and what it is. Then after explaining how it feels he goes on to say how nobody really wants to die. Sure there are people out there who don't fear death but it doesn't mean they want it. And people who are so depressed that they think of suicide... they don't really want to die either. They just want the pain and the numbness to stop. And unfortunately that's all they can see as a way out. And there seems to them to be no reason to live. There's just this emptiness in everything- nothing seems enjoyable or worth doing anymore and everything seems pointless and useless including yourself. And there is so much pain in your heart and you've had to numb yourself against so much that it feels like you've died a thousand times over

And really, you'd do anything just to feel alive again. Then he talks about how often people when you're depressed don't try to help they just sort of let you be eaten alive by the flames burning inside you and then you're consumed before anyone can blink an eye.

Then he talks about how people (mostly therapists and nurses and such) will ask you things like how you are on a scale of 1-10, one being the lowest you've ever felt and 10 being the best you've ever felt. But the problem is most of the time you don't really know how you feel because you just feel numb so that's a really hard question to answer. Then there's always "Do you want to talk about it?" and another problem is that most often you don't because you feel so alone you wonder to yourself, "How could anyone possibly understand?"

And then there's the fact that most people who get really depressed do things like cut and skip meals. Most people think that things like this are stupid and petty and are just someone trying to get attention. I mean, sure, there are people out there who do do these things just for attention. But in all honesty thest are things that truly depressed people do to keep from doing something worse. I'm not saying self harm is good at ALL. I'm just saying I have been there and I'll tell you what goes through your head. You have all this sadness and anger and pain building up and building up and it's like you're walking blindfolded into the ocean. You just keep getting deeper and deeper into the water and you're drowning and you're screaming and crying but no one can hear you and then all of a sudden someone comes and pulls you out. That's what cutting feels like in this state of mind. It's the most relief you can possibly imagine. It's not good and it doesn't really solve anything but it's not about wanting to kill yourself as most people think. It's just a relief from everything inside.
Oli ends the song by repeating the words "Hold me close, don't let go, watch me burn" and ending with the bit about the hospital for souls. And really I think that music like this is sort of like a hospital for the soul because it lets people in this state of mind know that they're not alone and that it does get better eventually. When you're this depressed it often doesn't seem like it'll get better and it often feels like you are the only person in the whole universe who feels the way you do. And it isn't true. There are millions of people battling depression every day. So just hold on and let yourself go to your own hospital for your soul and find one thing that makes you even remotely happy. You then have reason to live. Don't lose hope <3

2 comments:

Great post. I'm reminded of what comic book writer Matt Fraction said about this subject. I thought I would share it with you. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/18/matt-fraction-suicide-advice_n_4117612.html